


As it seems

by Gaia_bing



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes and the 21st Century, Canon Divergence - Captain America: The First Avenger, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Porn Video, Romance, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-01-30 02:38:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 7,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12644445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gaia_bing/pseuds/Gaia_bing
Summary: Tony Stark has just acquired some incredible pieces of art to add to his already very big and very out-there collection:Two well-crafted ice statues, both depicting some very well-known World War II soldiers.But, what happens when there's a malfunction in the middle of a showing-off party, all that ice begins to melt and Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes themselves literary crash, or should we say, literary faint, right into the 21st Century?





	1. The auction

**Author's Note:**

> So, another mini-series by yours truly! Hope you guys will enjoy this one, I'm pretty sure I'll have a lot of fun writing it. :)

**_New York City, 2014..._ **

_"This is our fourth item of the night: a gorgeous, **gorgeous** Monet, titled "Boulevard Des Capucines", taken from an Hydra office down in Mozambique. We're going to start...now! Starting at 100,000! Am I seeing 100,000? We have number 28 with 100,000! Do I see 150,000? Number 37 with 150,000 right here! How about 200,000?"_

  
Tony Stark yawned as he stared at his watch and then at the small ping-pong paddle shaped sign that was resting inside his left hand.

  
He usually lived for these kinds of events. He loved spending money, he loved competition and he loved collecting all kind of crazy stuff.

  
...besides the ones that he'd created himself, of course.

  
And tonight had a special point of interest for him because all the things up for bids had been requisitioned from different Hydra cells around the world, thanks to a recent international take-down of the organization lead by him and his fellow teammates, all of them commonly known as _"The Avengers"_.

  
Now, you would think that operating all over the world and dating back to the 1930's, Hydra would just have a trove of eclectic goodies, stuff people hadn't seen or bought before, things that were just waiting to be added to Tony's own body of out-of-the-box memorabilia.

  
But really, what he'd seen so far?

  
Had been just. **so**. **_freakin'_** . **_boring_**.

  
A pearl necklace that belonged to a Hydra general's wife? Meh.

  
A vase that had been stolen from an Arabic Prince's palace? Oh, _please_.

  
A golden pen that supposedly Armin Zola himself had written with? Get out of here.

  
And now this thing? A Monet painting that been stolen straight from the Louvre itself? Double, _double_ meh.

  
And sure, all these articles had been taken by some avid buyer and Tony was happy for all of them, he really was...

  
But...

  
Where was the ownership of a previously Hydra-led ostrich zoo located somewhere in Australia? Where was Red Skull's human mask? Where was Wolfgang von Strucke's monocle?

  
When was _his_ thing coming? Where was the kind of stuff that he himself thrived for?

  
As if fate heard him and decided to grant his request, the MC of the night right then announced the fifth and final item, or should we say, final item _s_ , that were up for bid...

  
_"Alright, ladies and gentlemen, these last articles could not be moved from their original location in time for tonight's event, due to their very, very delicate nature and we can only show you picture evidence of these two artifacts. They were found in what seems to be a well-hidden freezer-type room just besides Alexander Pierce's office. These are two incredibly well-crafted ice statues, depicting who we believe to be Steve Rogers along with a fellow American soldier named James Barnes, from the 107th Infantry Regiment that served alongside Captain America back in World War II._

  
_We will start the bid at..."_

  
"A million!" Tony suddenly cried out, standing up and waving his number "15" paddle around like a mad man.

  
The MC blinked a couple of times before adding:

 

_"...alright. One million dollars to start. Do I have a million five hundred? Do I see a million five hundred? Do I hear a million five hundred? No? Anyone? Well, in that case, one million dollars going once, going twice..."_

  
Tony Stark had just spent one million dollars on what was pretty much just two large blocks of ice that had been worked on by some nobody, but he could not feel more happy about his investment.

 

 _Finally_ , he would not leave this auction empty-handed after all and he'd had found something to fulfill his bizarre collecting needs.

 

And oh, if he only knew what kind of secrets his brand new acquisitions contained...

 

And how the worlds of the two people that were supposedly being depicted inside these pieces of arts were about to change,

in lots, _lots_ of different ways...


	2. Measuring up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pepper meets Tony's latest acquisitions...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry I couldn't update this story before today you guys! I've been feeling under the weather this whole week and only now am I feeling adequate enough to write a little something. So, here goes. :)

_"Meet me at the World Counsel Office, there's something that I have to show you. BTW, bring something warm to put on, these million-dollars babies cannot are way too cool to get hot!"_ was what greeted Pepper Potts on her phone the second she came down from her and Tony's private jet.

  
She sighed when she entered the limo awaiting her.

  
Pepper always been a very, _very_ patient woman, especially when it came to her ex-boss and current boyfriend Tony Stark.

 

Responsible for the man's finances ever since she'd been hired all those years ago, every single penny that he was spending had to be met with an okay from her mouth or her pen before he even thought of getting them out of his piggy bank.

  
But sometimes, the sneaky son-of-a-bitch that was her boyfriend slipped by the side-door, and would spend money on things without waiting for her approval.

  
And she'd been even _more_ patient whenever she'd find herself into this kind of situation...

  
She'd been totally on board when he'd coughed up 200K for a small shell piece of a fossilized penguin egg,

  
She'd even been a-ok when Tony had gone all the way to Pakistan and back to get his hands on an hundred-year-old slice of Royal pie (or had been a slice of cake? For the life of her, she couldn't remember.) that had ended up costing less than the trip that it took to get there,

  
But this?

  
A million bucks for god-knows-what that needed special assistance and couldn't be brought home straight away?

  
This one had stung the most.

  
Pepper shook her head to herself and feeling the car come into a stop, she put on the large coat that she'd brought along with her.

  
Whatever Tony had lavished a million dollars on a whim like that without consulting anybody first had better be the most gorgeous thing Pepper had ever seen, because her boyfriend would never, _ever_ , **_ever_ ** hear the end of it.

  
**_Ever_** and _**ever**_.

  
******************

  
They really were the most gorgeous things that she'd had ever seen. Ever, ever and _ever_.

  
**_Ever_ ** and **_ever_**.

  
She'd greeted Tony with a raised eyebrow and crossed arms, while he'd greeted Pepper with a sheepish smile and a ruler in his hands. And together, without saying a word, they'd descended the steps down to Alexander Pierce's former office and then had crossed a narrow hallway toward a small, metal-surrounded chamber, where Tony's earlier warning had come in really handy because _gosh_ was it cold in here.

  
And it was when she saw them that any words of resentment about not being told about this purchase beforehand completely dropped from the tip of her tongue right there and then.

  
They both just looked so _realistic_. Two life-size representations of World War II Soldiers, down to the smallest details on their bodies and textures on their pieces of clothing, stood before her, eyes closed like they were sleeping, in stances like they'd just dropped from way-high, with small metal beams here and there to support the whole thing.

  
Whoever had worked on these was an absolute genius.

  
She couldn't help but concede: Tony had made one hell of an investment there.

  
"Honey, they're amazing." Pepper whispered in awe.

  
The man in question smiled gleefully as he opened the yellow ribbon in his hands and began to take measurements of the statue that had surely been made in honor of Steve Rogers. "I know, right? And they'll be even more amazing at my party!" he said as began to write numbers on his smart phone.

  
Pepper's face turned into a frown. "Party? What party?" she asked.

  
Her boyfriend looked at her like what he'd just said was the most obvious thing in the world. "My Fourth-of-July Party, of course! What better way to pay tribute to our great Independence and our dear Uncle Sam than to make these two beauties the center piece of the whole thing?"

  
Pepper shook her head once again, this time in amusement as her boyfriend began to rattle on about BBQs, cocktails weenies and sparklers, all the while taking the measurements of the other ice statue, this one depicting someone that was unknown to the red-head.

  
And, while tuning out her boyfriend and tuning in the rest, she suddenly heard a set of rumbling noises.

  
She turned her head and was tempted to reach over and check if the piece of art that represented the unknown soldier was okay, but after seeing its delicate composure (just _how_ did the artist create that exquisite effect, like he or she had ducked a whole human being inside a jar of liquid ice like that?) along with its icy buddy, she quickly withdrew her hand.

And even if to this day she would say that she ended up associating that particular noise to just the many old motors keeping this place under thirty-two Fahrenheit...

  
A part of Pepper would always wonder if what she'd heard had actually been the sound of people _snoring_ , just like she'd originally thought she'd heard.


	3. Hottest party this town has to offer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party begins and some unexpected guests literally plop down.

It was  _the_ hottest party to be on this fourth of July.

Everyone that was anyone in the whole city of New York had been invited: the entirety of the Avengers team, celebrities, judges, high-ranking politicians, the works.

  
There were BBQs all across the roof of the Tower, where the party was being held, being operated by the most top-notch chefs the whole state had to offer. [Patriotic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mRn9chmRAY) music kept being played on loop to go with the theme of the night. Red, white and blue sparklers, along with lighting to fit the mood, kept turning up intermittently to the delight of the guests.

  
And at the center of it all, as always, was one Tony Stark, dressed like the American Flag had thrown up on him, right to the tip of his red-striped hat to the bottom of his blue-starred shoes.

  
And so at 6PM, just as scheduled, he walked just in front of a mass that had been covered in a huge doily, tapped his bubbling glass with a plastic spoon and grabbed the attention of every attendee as he began his rousing speech.

  
"Ladies and gentlemen, tonight I am honored and humbled to see so many of the best of what this beautiful city has to offer gathered all in one place. Yes, while today we have been celebrating the freedom of our present and we look forward to our many, many great accomplishments of our future, we also have to commemorate and pay tribute to those that have made the greatest sacrifice that there is to help us all get there. DUM-E, DUM-U, if you please..."

  
Oohs and aahs peppered themselves throughout the crowd as the giant sheet was lifted and everyone saw Tony Stark's pieces-de-resistance.

  
"That's Steve Rogers and James Barnes, they fought in World War II together." whispered a cop to his wife.

  
"Apparently Rogers used to be skinny as a stick, but then he took part of an experiment and became this mascot named "Captain America" or something." breathed one tech operator to another.

  
"But then Barnes got kidnapped by the bad guys in Germany and Rogers tried to rescue him, but they both died when the fortress that Barnes was being kept in ended up collapsing. Their bodies were apparently never found." finally muttered a female chef to one of the waiters.

  
Raising his arms to the sky in dramatic fashion, Tony closed his eyes and added:

  
"Yes, ladies and gentlemen, let us all bow our heads and gather for a moment of silence for the great soldiers of our past. For the Steve Rogers and the James "Bucky" Barnes, those that unfortunately never made it home. But also, let us say a prayer of thanks, for all of those that actually _did_ make it back. Servicemen and servicewomen, we all salute you."

  
Now, this would have been the perfect way to end what had pretty much been a perfect party and Tony would have probably been crowned the King of New York City in the papers by the very next morning, if it hadn't been for a couple of the following factors:

  
1) The amount of alcohol being served all through the afternoon had been pretty much limitless.

  
2) While the majority of the guests attending the party had been careful in said alcohol drinkage, some of them were a little bit less careful and were by now not just three, but _four_ sheets into the wind.

  
3) One of them, just who it was exactly is still unknown to this day, decided that a couple of ice cubes would be nice to add to his newly-served bloody-Mary and that the two big blocks of frozen goodies that were now standing if front of him would just do the trick. He or she would just needed to detach a sculpted finger or two.

  
4) The machine that had been keeping the ice statues onto their rightful temperatures that Tony had worked very, *very* hard on for the last couple of days to get it to work and to fit his million-dollars babies inside, had a very, _very_ long, but also very, _very_ well-hidden electric cord. A cord that nobody, even Tony, had noticed being unplugged by a tripping bloody-Mary holder, who quickly scampered away in shame after they'd realized just what they'd done.

  
5) And finally, while this party was in fact _the_ hottest party to be on this Fourth of July, it was also the _hottest_ party to be on this Fourth of July.

  
As in, eggs could cook on a pavement kind of hot...

  
People should get under shadows and trees so that they don't get insulation kind of hot...

  
And also, unfortunately for Tony, ice statues that can melt under just a couple of minutes kind of hot.

  
And so this was how, a moment led by silence, closed eyes and solemness was suddenly interrupted by a sudden:

  
**_*Slick*_ **

  
**_*Plop*_ **

  
And just like that, the hottest Fourth of July party this town had to offer welcomed two brand new but unscheduled guests...

  
Who gingerly got up from the asphalt ground their bottoms had just fallen onto,

  
Took a good look at all of the astonished faces that were staring at them both, looking even more confused than all of them were,

Turned their heads around and, after finally noticing the other's presence and whispering into the hot July air:

  
_"...Bucky?"_

  
_"...Steve?"_

  
Both promptly fainted right there and then.


	4. The hospital

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony finds a Stark way to wake the two sleeping soldiers up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a small, transitional chapter to bridge the two parts of the story.

While just outside the nearby hospital, where Steve Rogers and James "Bucky" Barnes had been driven to almost the second they'd collapsed on that hot-as-hell roof the night before, Pepper Potts was busy answering questions from the press:

  
-"Yes, identification processes have in fact confirmed that the two gentlemen that came out of those inanimate objects last night are in fact one Steve Rogers and one James Barnes, who had been thought to have been deceased since 1944."

  
-"No, we do not know how the soldiers made it inside that ice and what happened to make them survive for that huge  amount of time."

  
-"No, no. Mr. Stark had no idea that Mr. Rogers and Mr. Barnes were in fact inside those statues when he'd acquired them, because believe me, he would have made them melt the minute he'd obtained his so-called million-dollar-babies."

  
-"For now, all we can tell you is that the two men are in fact in stable conditions and are comfortably resting. Which all of you should also be doing, by the way. It's July the Fifth, it's six in the morning and I will let everyone know more when, and only when, I receive more information and precisions about what happened and what's going on. Alright? Alright."

  
Inside the hospital, Tony Stark was pretty much fanboying all alone, pacing just outside Steve and Bucky's room, all the while while muttering to himself:

  
"Didn't that James guy know my father? And wasn't that Steve guy the first alive superhero or something? And I had them both in my garage this whole time! Sweet baby Jesus, I bought two real World War II people! And for just a million? If had known, I would have payed a billion to get them, maybe even two! I have to get in there and talk to them! But, what the hell am I gonna say when I see them? What am I gonna do?"

  
Taking a couple of deep, deep breaths to calm himself down, a light-bulb suddenly flashed inside Tony's brain and he grinned to pretty much no one.

  
He knew _just_ what to do, because he was his father's son after all.

  
************

  
Mostly silence had been filling the hospital room ever since the two of them had been transported there. Only the slight noise of the machines surrounding them both and reading their vitals, along with what emanated from their slowly raising and falling chests had been making any kind of sound.

  
But that was about to change.

  
Because Steve Rogers and James Barnes didn't wake up by themselves when the time was right, oh _no_. Nor were they calmly risen from unconsciousness by the gentle voice of a working nurse, _far_ from it.

  
No, what woke them the both up, nearly twenty-four hours after fainting, making then alarmed and ready to fight back as much as they could, as silly as they were both looking inside their hospital gowns, was in fact someone that looked like Howard Stark, a man they'd both seen just a couple of months earlier, shouting over [music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UU4nEOYisCs&list=PLmGEbmwqAA4IYqCuH3bHzTVVtdpG6N4IJ) that came from a box that seemed to work without any kind of discs or any kind of needles somehow:

  
**"Welcome to the twenty-first century, boys!"**

  
And the first thought that entered Steve Rogers' now completely awakened mind was:

  
_"Twenty-first century? What the hell happened to the twentieth?"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next on the docket, the focus shifts as the boys face the 21st Century. First up, Steve! :)


	5. Steve Rogers vs. the 21st Century

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or more specifically, Steve Rogers vs. The Technology of the 21st Century.

Everything was just so... _bright_.

  
Everything was just so... _loud_.

  
Everything was just so... _different_.

  
That was the mantra that ran through Steve Roger's mind over and over again in the moments following his awakening to the twenty-first century.

  
After getting through his initial shock that Howard Stark had a son who was apparently just as resourceful, but also just as wacky as his old friend had been, both he and Bucky had been given the cliff-notes of what had happened for them to get both where they were now:

  
_1) ???_

  
_2) Auction_

  
_3) Party_

  
_4) Really hot_

  
_5) There you are!_

  
Of course, that all happened after after almost running out of the hospital (with Bucky in tow of course) in fear and shock of being waken up like that, but realizing that that particular idea was pretty much futile, mainly because he didn't want anyone to see his bare butt (and also Bucky's own) that was pretty much just hanging out from his way-too-small hospital gown.

So, he let himself calm down by this guy named Tony ( _Tony, really? That's how you named your kid, Howard?_ ) and here he was now, in the back of a limousine after getting discharged from the hospital, sitting right next to his companion-in-arms, as he tried to not let himself be blinded by everything around him.

  
And the thoughts that had been circling inside his brain for the past few hours and would continue on for at least the following days returned once again as he stepped out of the car, marched through an elevator and got himself through his new home, something called "The Avengers Tower".

  
And so, this was how the long thought-dead Captain America became an official member of the twenty-first century and with it came fortunately, but also unfortunately for him, everything that this particular fact entailed:

 

 _ **Steve vs. Technology, Round** **1**_ :

  
"So, this thing right here is a phone." explained the man that been assigned to teach him everything this brand new century had to offer, a dark-skinned and dark-haired man named Sam.

  
He put a small rectangle device in Steve's right hand, who turned it around and around on all of its sizes, searching and searching.

  
"Where's the cord that plugs it to the wall? And where the hell's the receiver?" he asked as he shook it slightly and the other man was about to answer when:

  
[Music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Diu2N8TGKA) suddenly came out of the small device and Steve, taken by surprise, flailed around in a jolt.

  
Sam pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed: "There is no cord, it works with a battery. And the receiver is inside the thing, or should I saw, _was_ inside the thing because you broke it in half when you dropped it on the floor just now and by the way, you owe me a brand new I-phone."

  
Steve looked at the mess right in front of his feet and then back at the furious man standing in front of him, smiling sheepishly.

  
_Steve 0, Technology 1._

 

 ** _Steve vs. Technology, Round 2_** :

  
"What do you think you're doing?" came Sam's voice a couple of days later as he entered the communal kitchen.

  
Steve was sitting there, completely fascinated. His eyes going around and around and around.

  
And around and around and around and around and around and...

  
"Again, what do you think you're doing?" Sam asked, bringing his fists to his hips.

  
Steve took his eyes off the now beeping microwave and excitedly proclaimed as he took out the now fuming piece of chicken from its mechanical entrails:

"This is the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life!"

  
Once again, Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. Why the _hell_ had Tony assigned him this particularly stupid mission?

 

And Steve looked at the other man while scratching the side of his face and eating his chicken, thinking to himself:

 

_"Why the hell did Tony assigned this poor guy on little 'ole me?"_

 

_Steve 0,5 (since the microwave didn't ended up broken this time around), Technology 1,5 (because really, a **microwave** is what captured Steve's imagination?)_

 

And finally **_Steve vs. Technology, Round 3_** :

  
Oh, oh _dear_.

  
That was...that really, really... _something_ , what Steve was staring at just now.

  
It'd began with Sam giving him a larger rectangle device than the I-phone that he had to repay from his own pocket (who knew that 70 years of longly-forgotten cash had gathered so much interest?) that seemed to fold on itself and the other man instructing him: "Now, this right here is a computer. You can pretty much do anything that you want with this baby. You can shop, you can play games, you can even watch cats videos, like so!" And with that, he'd been taken to a something called a _"webpage"_ and had been left alone, while video of small kittens running around were being played in front of him.

  
He was about to push the replay button to re-aww himself, when something on the screen caught his eyes.

  
_"Lonely man fucks his new gay neighbor!"_

  
And the image that previewed it was rather, well...very revealing.

  
Steve even caught himself staring at his own package, wondering if the serum that had been inserting into him so many years ago had enhanced him in that particular area just as much as the man holding his own inside his wet hands.

  
Slightly curious, Steve took what Sam had described as a "mouse" (even though it looked absolutely _nothing_ like the animal) and clicked on the picture of the nude man, to find...

  
**Sweet Merciful Jesus!** Since when could people _bend_ that way?!

  
Steve looked at the men on the screen, even more entranced than when he'd looked at the microwave and even more curiously than when a phone had been deposited inside of his hands, with three brand new questions now running inside his mind:

  
1) How in the world were videos of men sleeping together, and so graphically at that, being offered so openly and freeingly for the entire world to see?

  
2) Why was looking at this particular video doing such funny (but also really, _really_ good) things to his neither regions?

  
And 3)...

  
It was question no.3 that was frightening him the most and he didn't know what to think when it came to him.

  
Final results: ** _Steve 0,5, Technology, 3._ **

  
Because really, making Steve realize that much about himself in just an instant?

 

21st Century Technology _totally_ deserved a point and a half for that fact alone.

 

Hopefully, his best friend would fare better in this new day and age.

 

Then again...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up is Bucky! :D


	6. Bucky Barnes vs. the 21st Century

**_Bucky vs. Technology, Round 1_** :

  
James "Bucky" Barnes suspiciously glared at the red-haired woman standing in front of him. Natasha was her name and being a part of something called "The Avengers" was apparently her game. And while she had a cold exterior, she seemed to have a gooey, warm heart beating inside her chest.

  
Oh no, he was trusting her 100%. _She_ wasn't the problem...

  
It was what she was holding inside her hands that made Bucky feel a bit uneasy.

  
"Now what we've got here is called an I-Pod. It can contain videos, games and most importantly of all, music."

  
He stared holes at the small rectangle device that she was holding onto, one that looked similar to the one that Tony Stark (he still couldn't believe Howard had called his kid Tony out of all the available names that existed) himself had held up when he'd awoken him and Steve back at the hospital.

  
He was about to tentatively reach over and hold the device himself...

  
When sudden screaming came right out of it.

  
Sensing the threat at hand, Bucky was quick as a panther as he hit the device out of Natasha's hands and made it drop right onto the floor, before rolling right over behind the nearby couch after grabbing the red-head's pistol right off her hidden back holster, firing three shots into it, finally putting an end to that indescribable [screeching](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If9VmBlp82c) he'd been hearing all this while.

  
"And that right there was "Trash Metal", a completely legitimate music genre that was coming out of what had been a completely legitimate machine, until you just went apeshit just now and destroyed it with my stolen baby girl." Natasha completed her lesson of the day by saying, tapping her foot in annoyance at what she'd just witnessed.

  
Without a word, she grabbed the gun out of Bucky's now brandished left hand and could only shake her head as he put on his most apologetic, but also most sheepish smile.

  
Tony had set her up for what looked like to be a _long_ undertaking.

  
And Bucky still had lots to learn before becoming a legitimate member of this unknown society he was now a reluctant part of.

  
_Bucky, -1_ , (unlike Steve, he'd deliberately used something to destroy a piece of technology and an armed weapon at that, so a point was rightfully deductible here), _Technology, 1_.

 

**Bucky vs. Technology, Round 2:**

  
A car was something Bucky could easily take on, with him having his own back in the day before he went all icy and having to learn how to control Jeeps and the likes when it had come time to go to the big War. So it was pretty much easy-peasy for him to enter any of the current models this century had to offer, use the brake and the throttle and all that jazz. 

It was just that...

  
Gosh...

  
That _thing_ that Natasha had installed on the dashboard of his vehicle of choice, a 2014 Pontiac, to help him get to different destinations...

  
It was just working on his damn nerves So. _Damn_. _**Much**_.

  
At first the GPS hadn't bothered him at all. Going from here to there in the shortest route possible without having to check out maps all the time was pretty nice, but the more he used it, the more irritated he became.

Always giving out the wrong directions, even when it came time to travel very small distances.

  
And the moment things came to ahead between him and the machine...

 

Let's just say it really wasn't pretty. 

  
He'd wanted to try out a little bit of modern food and since he'd been such a good cook in the past, he was sure that with a nice cookbook, he could conjure anything that he wanted even if he'd missed so much over the last 70 years.

  
So, he put up the address of the nearest grocery store inside the small machine and started the engine of his car.

  
_"Go left at the intersection."_ it had said.

  
Bucky had looked at the small electronic map and then at the road ahead. Clearly the shortest way to get to the grocery store was by going to the right at the intersection and not the left.

  
And so, he turned to the right when he came at the intersection.

  
_"Make a U-Turn and turn left at the intersection."_ the GPS said.

  
"Nope." Bucky said to the machine, a defiant look on his face.

  
_"Make a U-Turn and turn left at the intersection."_ the feminine voice emanating from the small speaker repeated once more.

  
Bucky vehemently shook his head as he answered: "I said no. The shortest way is right, so I'm going to go right. And if you're not happy,  well you can take all of your always damn wrong directions and shove them up your artificial..."

  
What came next hadn't happened before, at least to the driving man's knowledge. The small screen in front of him that had displayed the indications about where to go before suddenly turned red and an alarm accompanied by a loud voice suddenly began to yell out:

  
_**"TURN AROUND! TURN AROUND ! TURN AROUND! TURN AROUND!"** _

  
_That's it_ , Bucky had thought to himself, as he had calmly parked his car at the nearest parking lot that he could find, silently turned the engine off...

  
And then had proceeded to beat that piece of machinery that came straight from hell until all that was left of it was just a stack of broken pieces of white plastic and a bunch of bent over screws.

  
_Bucky -0,5, Technology 2_ (If only Bucky had thought to turn the "Less traffic" option off...)

 

And finally: _ **Bucky vs. Technology: Round 3**_

  
_Finally_ , something Bucky could easily adapt and sink his teeth into. And with that service that Natasha had given him called "Netflix" added to the mix, he was in pure heaven!

  
He could catch up on everything he'd missed since he'd been frozen,

  
He could re-watch certain things from his time,

  
He could also...

  
Maybe...

  
Indulge himself into some more..."adult" viewings that his time hadn't allowed him to see.

  
And _boy_ was the show that he was watching right now definitively _not_ for the kiddies, no siree!

  
The brown-haired man on his knees, staring upwards at his captain..

.  
The standing and beefy blond-haired man, smirking at his Sergeant as he began to undo his trousers...

  
_Yeah, this was the good stuff_ , Bucky told himself as he began to undo his own trousers and began to..."indulge" himself, so to speak.

  
And so, this was how James "Bucky" Barnes became an official member of the twenty-first century.

 

And yes, while everything these days was loud and bright and different, somehow to Bucky, all these things were just perks and inconveniences that came with the age he'd fallen onto.

  
Or more precisely, his _bottom_ had fallen onto.

 

 

  
**_Final results:_ ** _Bucky 0,5, Technology 3._

 

Because really, teaching something that Bucky already knew about himself? _Totally_ worth just a point.

 

 


	7. The big question

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A discovery answers some things, but also raises a shocking question...

It was about a month after waking up that Steve and Bucky were called into the communal communication room and found Tony standing in front of a large monitor, something they had come to learn as a "DVD disc" in hand.

  
Smiling as he witnessed the two former soldiers sitting down together on the leathery couch at the center of the room, Tony began his presentation:

  
"Now boys, as you know, ever since I found out about you two, I've been doing some investigating about how the both of found yourselves inside some Hydra freezer-thingy as two large drink-cooling devices."

  
Buck and Steve looked at one another in curiosity. Both of them had admitted not remembering what had happened all those years ago, their memories still not at 100% after being frozen for so long. And no matter how much they tried, all that they seemed to remember about this particular event were:

  
1) A fortress,

  
2) Saving Bucky,

  
3) Explosions...

  
4) That was it.

  
Brandishing the small disc between his fingers, the billionaire added: "Well, after some digging around, I found this bad boy inside Alexander Pierce' desk and it might help us gather up the events to what exactly happened here. Take a looksie."

  
The huge screen behind Tony began to transmit what the disc had to offer and who Steve and Bucky assumed was Alexander Pierce smiled back at them as he began to talk:

  
_"Alright, this is Monday, December 6th 2010 and we are here near the border of Germany. Now, as history tells us, there was a fortress that belonged to Hydra back in the 1940s situated all the way to Austria._

  
_Now, unfortunately for us, that fortress was taken down by none other than Captain America himself, Steve Rogers when he tried to save a fellow soldier of his named James Barnes and made the whole thing collapse on itself. And neither Rogers nor Barnes made it out of the fortress in any known capacity. For all these years, we thought it was because they'd escaped through an underground route none of Hydra was aware of and had remained unaccountable ever since, but this morning, while doing some digging around through what remained of the building, the excavation team and I made quite the discovery..."_

  
The man on the screen took a few steps aside and this gave Bucky and Steve quite the view of themselves, entrapped in what looked like to be a large tank made of steel, but the water inside of it was stilled instead of moving.

  
Pierce approached the large machine with an even wider smile as he said: _"Taking them out of there in the pristine condition that they are right now will be difficult, but doable. And they will be absolutely beautiful additions to my office art, let me tell you."_

  
Pointing at the figure that had been Steve Rogers, he added: " _Now, taking from the position his body has taken inside this tank, it is safe to assume that Rogers fell from quite a few storeys before splashing straight into this icy concoction. Quite possibly from a missed jump or a similar situation. But what is intriguing here isn't Roger's predilection, but Barnes..."_

  
Moving over to where Bucky's form was, the man on the screen explained: _"Now, what you see here may look like someone that was in the same situation than Rogers had been: falling from up high because of something unexpected, but look at his face right here_."

  
That's when Steve noticed the difference between the two icy figures laying inside that tank:

  
And while his face was showing the horror of falling from up above, opened eyes and opened mouth supporting that fact, Bucky's face was...

  
Completely _serene_. Mouth closed, eyes closed, features completely relaxed.

  
The Bucky that was sitting next to him on the couch was looking down at the ground, blinking and breathing rapidly, as if things began to .

  
Tony, after shutting the video off, sadly smiled as he walked out of the room and called out: "I'll leave you guys to it."

  
And Steve?

  
"Buck?"

  
"Yeah?" the man in question answered in a trembling voice, not daring to look at the blond in the face.

  
The former Captain America lowered his head so that his eyes could meet Bucky's as he finally...

  
As he finally addressed the question that had been on the tip of his tongue the second he'd seen his best friend's frozen face up close on that big video screen:

  
_"Did you jump into that thing voluntarily?"_


	8. What really happened

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hydra Fortress, Austria, 1944.

They had to get out of there.

Everything was on fire, everything was collapsing around them.

  
Bucky and Steve ran as fast as possible, as fast as whatever was now running inside their veins could make them do so.

  
They both ran, until they just couldn't.

  
There had been a structure, something that seemed to hold the whole room (or maybe even the whole building together) that crossed like a bridge. Bucky, now being the lighter of the two, embarked on it with slow, careful steps.

  
Step after step he walked, looking around and underneath him.

  
Explosions were lighting the long-way down floor with hues of oranges, yellows and red. They really had to get the hell out of here and *fast*. That thought made Bucky double his speed in walking.

  
Arriving in the middle of the structure however, Bucky froze as white suddenly illuminated his face. Looking down once more, he noticed something that looked like a glowing swimming pool standing right underneath him.

  
He stood there for a few seconds, mesmerized.

  
"Buck! What are you doing?! Cross that thing before it's too late!" Steve suddenly cried out, breaking him out of his momentary trance.

  
The metal beneath Bucky's feet began to shake and rattle and the soldier quickly shook his head and went on. Metal beams began to fall off from the walls they'd been attached to only moments earlier and Bucky just knew he had to make haste.

Just a few quick steps, a quick jump and _there_ , he was safe.

  
The same fate didn't occur to the structure that he'd been walking on just seconds earlier, however, as it was now falling down several storeys, leaving the man on the other side with pretty much nothing to cross.

  
Bucky stood on the steel railing, looking around for something to help his best friend come over to him, before finally yelling out:  
"Lend me a rope or something!"

  
With a movement of his arm, Steve, the ever sacrificial fool that he'd always been, yelled back: "Just go, get out of here!"

  
Bucky became frantic. "No! Not without you!" he cried out. Because there was no way he'd leave Steve behind, not after the other man had seemingly transformed himself to join him on the battle lines and save him from his entrapment.

And there was no way he'd let Steve go before telling him...

 

Before telling him...

  
The sound of bending metal cut through his thoughts and Bucky looked up to see Steve tightening his hold on something that looked like a shield and retreating a few steps backwards.

  
Bucky slowly smiled to himself. Good, the other man would make the jump, they'd both get out of this hellhole and they'd finally be reunited with the rest of the 107th.

  
Only, all of this never came to be, as Steve miscalculated the distance between his position and where Bucky had been standing, had taken a step too far back...

  
And..

.  
Bucky could only stand there in shock as Steve plunged several storeys down, to land in a splash right in the middle of the white pool that had illuminated his thoughts only minutes earlier.

  
"St-Steve?" Bucky brokenly whispered.

  
Fire began to eat away at the wall just behind him, but Bucky didn't care. The railing underneath his feet began to shake as the rest of the whole room had been doing so, but Bucky didn't care.

  
He couldn't think of anything, he couldn't feel anything, because Steve was gone.

  
And it had been all his fault.

  
So, like the zombie that had been created thanks to Steve Rogers' fall...

  
James Buchanan Barnes took a few steps forward and joined him, landing in a splash inside a large container that could read right on its side:

  
_"Liquid Nitrogen"_


	9. Confessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little heart-to-heart makes the world of a difference.

Steve couldn't believe what he'd just heard Bucky finally remember. He stood up from his seat on the leather couch and proceeded to pace back and forth on the carpeted floor of the communication room. 

"What were you thinking?" he asked, running his fingers through his shot hair over and over again in frustration.

"I don't know." was what Bucky muttered, still unable to look at the other man. 

"You jumped inside a tank full of liquid ice by your own free will? Were you crazy?! Are you crazy!? Why in the world would you do such a thing?!" Steve cried out and finally stopped his stressed-walking. 

He stood in front of his best friend, the man he thought he knew every single thing about. But, then again, after what he'd just been told, maybe he didn't know every single thing about James "Bucky" Barnes. 

Especially since Bucky didn't know every single thing about Steve either. At least nowadays...

The blond man rapidly shook his head. There were more important things to solve right now than his own feelings. He needed to know... 

"There was a _lot_ of time left for you to get out of that damn fortress. You could have gotten out, you could have returned to the Commandos, you could have finished the war and you could have gotten home. You could have retired as a Sergeant and gotten lots and lots of money and got married and gotten lots and lots of kids. You could have been an old man by now, with a very rich life filled with so many memories, so many...so many everything, Buck." 

He crouched down on his knees, lifted his best friend's chin with the tip of his index finger and finally looking at the other man in the eye, he asked: 

"When you knew I was done for, why didn't you save yourself, Bucky?"

And the former soldier, looking into the former Captain's America's teary eyes, couldn't hide himself anymore. 

Couldn't hide his whole mind, couldn't hide his whole soul...

Couldn't hide his whole _heart_.

Leaning into the tender touch that was now cradling his cheek, Bucky's own eyes filled themselves with water as he admitted:

"Like I told you back then, I wasn't going to get out of there without you and I damn well _meant_ it. All the world that I could see, all the time that I could have had and all the life that I could have lived would have meant absolutely _squat_ if you'd not been there to share all of it with me."

He was now the one reaching over and he couldn't help a teary smile when he saw that Steve was returning his earlier gesture with his own cheek.

"You're not just a soldier that I would have left behind Steve, you're not just a best friend that I would have grieved over for a couple of months and then would have probably forgotten about in my later years. You're... _god_ , you're..." Bucky whispered as he slowly closed his eyes, leaned over as the same time as Steve and... 

"You're everything to me too, James Buchanan Barnes." was what Steve whispered against his feverish lips, before both men stumbled down onto the shaggy carpet, fighting over dominance in their kisses...

In theirs caresses... 

In their removal of clothes...

To finally tie the entire score by taking turns fucking the other at it like crazy. 

Thank the lord for that thing called an "automated door lock" to keep the Avengers team at bay...

And thank the lord even more so for that thing called "lube", but that was for other, much more _personal_ and sexy, _sexy_ reasons...

That Tony Stark made them clean up when the next morning came, thanks to the one invention both Bucky and Steve knew very, _very_ well...

The washer and the dryer.

 


	10. A new era

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New York City, July 4th 2015

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we go! Thanks everybody who supported this story in some kind of way, I really do appreciate each and every one of you guys. :)

This really _was_ the hottest party to be in the whole city. The music was pumping, the alcohol was flowing and Bucky and Steve were standing in their own little corner of the Avengers' Towers roof, inside each other's arms.

  
They had officially joined the Avengers only a couple of weeks after getting together and both fit inside the team like two happy little fishes inside a pond. Fighting so that the world knew peace was what they were meant to do, no matter when and no matter where their feet were touching at the moment.

  
Yes, heroes was what they'd always been meant to be...

But also lovers too.

  
And they both highly excelled in that particular role, thank you very much.

  
If the _entire_ walls of the Tower could talk...

  
And each of Tony's very expensive cars...

  
And the Quinjet...

  
And many, many of the World's most beautiful locales...

  
Among many, _many_ places.

  
The papers would crown Tony Stark the king of New York when morning came. They'd say that the fireworks that emanated from the Tower had been some of the most beautiful Independence Day had ever brought on.

  
And some of the most gossipy ones wouldn't help but wonder why the tall blond man, nicknamed Captain America, had been seen wearing a golden band on his left finger.

  
And why the one that had come along with him into the future, named James Barnes, had been seen wearing one as well...

They wouldn't know until much, much later that both Steve and Bucky Barnes had thanked the lord for that thing they called "gay marriage" earlier that night...


End file.
